Neoconservatism is not a threat to the free-living, free-wheeling, bleeding heart liberal philosophy of us drug-crazed, sex-minded hippie freaks.
No, despite its definition as “an approach to politics or theology that represents a return to a traditional point of view (in contrast to more liberal or radical schools of thought of the 1960s)”, it is not the left wing, per se, that is the target of neoconservatism. It’s target is not to return us to before 1960, but before 1760. After all, the traditional point of view in politics or theology is not democracy. It is monolithic, totalitarian and unquestioned rule. It is fascism, painted with a nostalgic brush called “the good old days” — those days before liberal science gave us the conveniences that gave us the free time to sit around and reminisce without having to actually experience the minor setbacks of medicine, culture, diversity, equality, and economic well-being that were in those halycon days available only to the extremely wealthy, or extremely lucky (and luck would be defined as in the right place to benefit from the temporary whims of the current dictatorship). It is belittling, beheading, excommunicating, exiling, or executing any who disagree with your point of view. And it is the point of view of rich, white men — who have convinced, somehow, the remaining 95% of the population of this country (that’s right, 95% of the wealth is controlled by 5% of the people, remember, and those aren’t people living in Harlem, or Watts, or Chinatown) that this is the agenda upon which America should settle. The course which we must steer by. Our mandate.
Let me get this straight — our mandate, as a democratic nation, is to abandon democracy, much as the Anasazi abandoned New Mexico.
Under a banner of religious self-righteousness, jingoistic nationalism, military might and xenophobic paranoia — particularly regarding people of Semitic origin and language.
Careful with that swastika, Eugene.
You will not successfully barter the illusions of freedom and liberty for the illusions of control and safety on my watch. The former may be undisciplined, untamed and only nebulously defined, but even in that raw, feral state they are worth ten times the most alluring manifestations of the latter.
That’s what I call a Neo-Liberal agenda. Fixing the broken left wing so the eagle doesn’t have to spin in circles and wear itself out trying to leave the ground.
Or to put it more bluntly, you can have the Constitution to wipe your ass with when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
The right to bear arms is NOT the same as the right to own or use a gun.
Schools and hospitals should be a greater priority than prisons and graveyards.
The ends never justify the means.
A Democracy is more fragile, and therefore needs more protection, than a Republic. The former is an idea, while the latter is a thing. That’s why the Pledge of Allegiance is somewhat misleading. A symbol, such as a flag, stands for an idea or ideal, not a thing. A thing is a limited interpretation, a casting in the temporary stone of time, so to speak, of an idea. It is not the idea itself, only a small part — in the same way that a religion is merely a bucketful of seawater mistaken for the entirety of the ocean.
Once you disregard ideas in favor of things, you stop thinking. Once you stop thinking, it doesn’t matter what the polls say, because the opinions you are offering are not your own, anyway. Most likely they have been given to by someone who does not know of, care about, value, respect, understand, or have any responsibility for, your life.
The responsibility, at least, they can never shoulder anyway. Responsibility is the price you pay for ideas — whether your own or someone else’s.
